No openings.Zhang Xinjie made the least amount of mistakes out of any player in the Glory Alliance, and this characteristic was one of his most notable strengths. Now, it was being realized in Team Tyranny"s tactics.
In the past, Tyranny"s bold and aggressive playstyle made it impossible not to make mistakes. As a result, they relied on overwhelming force to push their way through. But now, things were different.
By waiting for half a minute, not only did they not walk into a trap, they promptly interrupted a potential play from Happy before positioning themselves into a more open s.p.a.ce, which allowed for them to retreat or advance as they wished. The hidden danger was silently resolved in this way.
Perhaps only someone like Ye Xiu, who had a deep understanding of Tyranny, could these sort of changes clearly.
After moving to the wide open street, Tyranny finally began scouting ahead.
Han Wenqing"s Desert Dust and Lin Jingyan"s Dark Forest at the front, Zhang Jiale"s Dazzling Hundred Blossoms and Qin Muyun"s Negative Nine Degrees at the back on the left and right, respectively, and Zhang Xinjie"s Immovable Rock at the center.
The team maintained this formation as they approached Lord Grim. With every step, they seemed to be finding new information.
Retreat?
With how calm and collected Tyranny was moving, retreating would not bait them into action.
Advance?
What good would that do? It wasn"t like he could charge in and 1v5!
However, Ye Xiu"s Lord Grim really did advance forward, matching their every step.
Before Tyranny"s fans could react to Ye Xiu"s insane decision, two players dashed out from Tyranny"s formation.
Dazzling Hundred Blossoms.
Negative Nine Degrees.
The two long-ranged gunners unexpectedly took the lead, while Han Wenqing"s Desert Dust and Lin Jingyan"s Dark Thunder continued to move forward at their original pace.
Gunfire burst forth. The two gunners focused their fire towards Lord Grim.
Retreat?
No, the two Gunners had blocked off the area behind Lord Grim. The two were sealing off his retreat path. Retreating would be exactly what they wanted.
Don"t retreat?
The moment the gunfire stopped Lord Grim from escaping, Desert Dust and Dark Thunder suddenly sped up, dashing towards Lord Grim.
An a.s.sault from all sides was completed in an instant!
"Beautiful!" Pan Lin cried out.
Ye Xiu"s response to this beautiful offensive was extremely simple. He opened up his umbrella as a shield and pointed it in Negative Nine Degrees" direction.
Peng peng peng peng...
The bullets bouncing off of his umbrella sounded quite peculiar. With the bullets blocked, Lord Grim was about to stroll his way out of danger, when white flames suddenly burst from the ground.
Sacred Fire!
Taking advantage of the fact that Ye Xiu"s vision was blocked from his own umbrella shield, Zhang Xinjie cast a Sacred Fire, surrounding Lord Grim in white flames.
Three seconds of Silence, three seconds of opportunity!
In an instant, dazzling light swallowed the area. Lord Grim"s figure became blurry as Desert Dust and Dark Thunder dashed into the light.
The crowd let out a cry of surprise.
Tyranny"s sudden burst of speed from their initial slow and methodical manner was truly shocking.
Tyranny"s tactics had become more varied. Not only did it not weaken their offense, it upped their explosiveness by another level through an abrupt change in tempo. In addition, their change in tactics didn"t leave behind a single opening.
To allow for a sudden increase in tempo, every step need to be carefully thought out for there to be not opening.
Sharpshooter attacks were single-target attacks and were very easy to block with a shield. So what if you blocked them? There"s a Sacred Fire laying in wait!
Facing such a watertight arrangement, even if the experienced Ye Xiu could see through it, what could he do? There was simply no way to break out.
"Ye Xiu got careless!" Even Li Yibo, who had become even more careful for this match, dared to criticize Ye Xiu.
That was what everyone else was thinking too.
Going alone to challenge an entire team was brave, but challenging the team and then getting killed for it was embarra.s.sing.
Ye Xiu was in an extremely dangerous and embarra.s.sing situation, yet... there were still no signs of movement from the rest of Happy.
The broadcast had split the screen to show the perspectives of the four players on Happy, and they could definitely see Lord Grim"s predicament. However, to everyone"s surprise, they stuck to their original plan and didn"t go over to help.
They can"t be that inflexible, can they? It was hard to avoid asking this question.
It was true that pre-match preparations were important, but the other 70% of the match depended on the team"s response to the circ.u.mstances of the match. There was no team who would do nothing seeing this situation.
Unless... they were confident that they needed to make any moves.
The camera once again locked onto Lord Grim.
Lord Grim had already been swallowed by the Hundred Blossoms style, and Han Wenqing and Lin Jingyan needed only a few more steps to reach him. During these 3 seconds, Lord Grim wouldn"t be able to use any skills. Inside the light, a blurry shape could be seen spinning round and round in a circle.
How long could 3 seconds be?
After a few circles, the blurry figure in the light suddenly sped up. In the next instant, Lord Grim could be seen clear as day in front of everyone.
Lord Grim had escaped from the Hundred Blossoms besiegement, while under the three seconds of Silence from Sacred Fire.
The crowd was silent in shock.
A replay quickly appeared on the big screen. This time, the camera zoomed in, paying close attention to Lord Grim.
All sorts of bullets and grenades had been thrown at Lord Grim. Lord Grim couldn"t use any skills. He could only wave around the umbrella in his hands, blocking what he could as he moved. Three seconds later, through a skill that increased his movement speed, he broke out from the Hundred Blossoms style.
The viewers continued to be at a loss. Despite seeing the slow-motion replay, they still couldn"t understand. How could he escape by just blocking a few attacks?
Only Zhang Jiale understood. Only the person who created the Hundred Blossoms style could.
Only he knew that Lord Grim"s spinning umbrella wasn"t just to block some damage, it was to block the attacks that the Hundred Blossoms style used to restrict the opponent.
It was because he blocked those few skills that the light of the Hundred Blossoms style still existed, yet did little to obstruct its target. After the Sacred Fire wore off, Ye Xiu immediately rushed out with a movement skill, leaving Han Wenqing and Lin Jingyan in the dust.
In other words, even though Tyranny"s tactics had no openings, Zhang Jiale"s Hundred Blossoms style had been seen through by Ye Xiu.
Ye Xiu"s understanding of Zhang Jiale was not much worse than his understanding of his long-time rival Han Wenqing.
The Hundred Blossoms style? Not just this season, just counting the past, it had been around for a whole six years.
As Zhang Jiale"s att.i.tude changed, the Hundred Blossoms style had also changed, but no matter how much the style changed, there were only so many Spitfire skills. By understanding the purpose of each skill, it was often possible to counter the style.
The theory sounded simple, but there were only a handful who could do it in practice.
Ye Xiu had done it because of his understanding of the style and his experience. After seeing the role of each player in Tyranny"s formation, he was able to immediately deduce Zhang Jiale"s aim during this period of time.
As for how Zhang Jiale would use his skills, with how diverse the Hundred Blossoms style was, there was no way for Ye Xiu to predict it 100%, but he could at least make the mental preparations to defend against the most important attacks. The other part was that Lord Grim had a very big shield.
Lord Grim rushed out from the encirclement and swiftly retreated. Tyranny"s two long-ranged characters chased after him, but the tempo of the two Fighters immediately slowed.
They didn"t pursue him relentlessly because they didn"t forget that the other four members of Happy were very likely lying in wait for them here.
As a result, once Lord Grim escaped from Tyranny"s attack range, Tyranny slowed down as a whole. They went back into a stable formation and slowly approached one step at a time.
Patience. They were playing very patiently.
They had been dreaming of winning the championships for so many years. What was a few seconds of patience to them?
Tyranny steadily pushed forward, making Ye Xiu"s challenge towards them seem childish. Even if had escaped from what Li Yibo thought as impossible to escape from, in terms of energy, Tyranny had the upper hand.
Li Yibo had just been slapped in the face. His mood wasn"t good, and he didn"t want to speak anymore. The majority of people in the stadium were Happy fans. They had been worried seeing that scene. They couldn"t understand why no one in Happy did anything to help. What was Happy"s plan?
No instructions had been typed into Happy"s team chat, which meant that everything so far had been a part of Happy"s pre-match plans. Their strategy seemed to be to lure the opponents deep into their territory, but seeing Tyranny now, they definitely weren"t going to fall into that sort of trap. Even so, Happy was insistent on following with their plans.
"What are they doing?" Even Huang Shaotian couldn"t understand. He messaged Yu Wenzhou.
"Maybe they wanted to have a better feel for Tyranny"s tactical structure?" Yu Wenzhou wasn"t certain either.
"In that case, did they need to do that?"
"If they didn"t do it that way, who else besides Ye Xiu could escape from that sort of predicament?" Yu Wenzhou replied.
Huang Shaotian held his cellphone in his hands for a long time, but he didn"t reply.
Everyone would always ask this question to themselves subconsciously.
Escape from the Hundred Blossoms style the way Ye Xiu did?
Extremely difficult.
Huang Shaotian had a certain level of understanding of the Hundred Blossoms style, but not to the same level of depth as Ye Xiu.
Troubling Rain didn"t have a shield either, so it would be much harder for him to block attacks.
Break through the Hundred Blossoms style while Silenced, only by dodging and blocking?
Extremely difficult was one way to put it, but that was because there was no such thing as impossible!
If he had been in Ye Xiu"s position, he would most likely have died...